Facebook knows when your followers aren’t real

DECODED: TECH, TRUTH, AND THREATS

By Art Samaniego

Ever wonder how a brand-new Facebook page suddenly racks up thousands of followers overnight? Simple answer: fake followers.

Here’s a story about what happened to my TechWatch Facebook page.

While working on a story for the Manila Bulletin about the thriving black market for Facebook page followers, I decided to dig deeper. Facebook Marketplace was full of offers, and one caught my eye, a page with over 10,000 followers for sale. I messaged the seller purely out of curiosity and for research.

“I need a page with 10,000 followers,” I told him.

“For ₱2,000, you can have it now,” he replied.

I haggled a bit. “I only have ₱1,400.”

“Deal.”

A few minutes later, he gave me full admin access. Just like that, I owned a Facebook page with over 10,000 followers. But here’s the thing, these weren’t real fans. They were ghost accounts, likely bots or paid followers. None of them engaged. None of them were part of any meaningful community.

After publishing the story that exposed how easy and unethical it is to buy followers, I didn’t delete the page. Instead, I gave it a second life. I rebranded it as TechWatch, hoping to turn it into a platform for cybersecurity awareness and tech literacy.

But there’s a bigger takeaway here.

Facebook page likes and follower counts can’t always be trusted. Brands, content creators, and yes, even politicians sometimes inflate their numbers to appear influential. But vanity metrics don’t build trust. Engagement does. Real conversations do.

So here’s my advice: Always verify. Don’t rely solely on what suppliers or digital marketers tell you. Click on the “Page Transparency” tab. Ask: Are these people real? Are they actually engaging? Inflated numbers might impress at first glance, but they crumble under scrutiny.

After a month of running TechWatch, Facebook suspended the page, citing violations of its Community Standards. This was a wake-up call and a revelation. It showed that Meta has the technology to detect pages with inauthentic behavior, even weeks after they’re rebranded.

Maybe it was the sudden spike in followers. Maybe it was the absence of real engagement, or the metadata buried deep in the page’s history. Whatever the signal was, Meta’s systems caught it, weeks after the rebrand, with no warning, the page was suspended for violating Community Standards.

That’s the real lesson here. You can rename a page, change its profile photo, even fill it with good intentions. But if it was built on fake foundations, the platform sees it. And eventually, it acts.

Buying followers might give you a head start, a number to flash, a shortcut to seeming relevant. But it’s hollow. Facebook can tell the difference. And in the long run, so can your audience.

From here on, I want every follower of TechWatchPh to be real. If you care about verified tech information, cybersecurity tips, and digital truth-telling, follow the new TechWatchPh page at https://www.facebook.com/techwatchphilippines/ (yes, we’re rebuilding from scratch, this time the right way).